To be fed up of stupid remarks about childless people

[Beverlysparty]

Just in the last few days on here someone has opined that maybe Lucy letby killed all those little babies because she was 'jealous' of people who had children; someone has stated that as her childless/free friends get older they have become very self absorbed while she hasn't and someone else has made an insulting comment about childless people in hotels.

It's the same in real life; comments about how you don't know real love until you've had children, you don't know what tired is until you've had children, you have all the money in the world for holidays and expensive make up and clothes because you don't have the worry and expense of children.

It's not only insulting it's also deeply inaccurate.

This is it.
Same thing when women shame other women for being single / not married.

It’s really sad, and it’s only their problem, but sadly they really do try and make other women feel bad about making different choices / living differently.

I think we have a bit of a wind-up merchant on this thread, best ignored as they're not contributing anything beyond drivel level anyway.

I have an adult daughter. Parents do not deserve a medal for having children, especially if done the traditional way with little hitch.

As for child free people not having empathy, anybody who peruses any of the many " would you report your child if they committed a crime?" threads would think that the majority of mothers have an untapped Ma Barker gene waiting to be triggered. Even the crime of rape overwhelmingly had mothers on this site saying that they wouldn't report their sons.

The fact is that modern child centred parenting has made too many parents in the first world Anglo west the most unempathetic people in society...or to be more precise, they use their children as a conduit to give them permission to express their entitlement.

Socialising one's children so as they do not infringe upon the peace of people on restaurants, etc is damn near seem as oppression. Trying to have a boundary away from children by having adult only spaces outside of things of a sexual nature is seen as an infringement on the notion of The Sanctity Of The Child by many a parent too self absorbed to cop on as to why adults, the majority of them parents would like spaces in this world not given over to the notion of centering The Child.

Then there is the phenomenon of not enabling the child to become an adult and letting them flop in order for them to sturdy themselves and learn how to put things into perspective without catastrophising.

Ask any teacher, job recruiter, person who works in Uni Admin, poor bastard on minimum wage who has to shadow one of these delights as they get to know their way around a job that involves more "cop on" than studied skill how's that going.

If more parents had a sense of humour, they would say that at least it ain't the Child Free that are foisting the potential rapists, murderers, embezzlers, cheats, thieves, pimps, paedophiles, traffickers, Johns, tricks, sex addicts, drunkards, drug addicts, animal abusers, domestic abusers on the world. Their only undisputed commonality being that they all had a mother and father, known or unknown.
Then again, I come from stock where even some of the Great Generation women chose not to have children within marriage and not.
And this has continued into GenX, Millennial and I can already guess the GenZ ones who will not have children whether in marriage or not.

Shit, my Boomer mother's great generation mother held off motherhood until she was 45 , which was damn near an Obselete, much less geriatric mother in 1948!
It's been great to have so many different examples of female dynamism in my lifetime family tree.

Yes and being slapped, bitten, punched and kicked by a full grown adult in the small hours is really conducive to a restful sleep!

What does that have to do with this thread?

👏👏👏👏👏👏

Not everyone wants children. I often find it's parents who make these self assuring offensive comments all the time, to make their child rearing decisions more bearable, and to accept the reality that they'll never truly enjoy the freedoms and selfishness that childfree couples can scuba dive in. I don't have kids, and have yet to see parents who make me desire having kids. Babies are cute. After that, you're lumbered with life long burdens that are unpredictable, yet your problem if you want to be a good parent.

And that's the opinion of someone without children.

To think childless people are in any way shape or form jealous of those with kids; is ludicrous beyond belief and classic reverse psychology (unless they're trying for one and can't conceive - the only situations in which it's a plausible argument!).

To think childless people are in any way shape or form jealous of those with kids; is ludicrous beyond belief and classic reverse psychology (unless they're trying for one and can't conceive - the only situations in which it's a plausible argument!).

I couldn’t conceive and I don’t feel jealous of parents now. I did back in the 90s when I was ttc but I had a pretty rose tinted view of family life because no one was honest about it then.

I'm struggling to understand the motivation behind your comment.

Haven't RTFT and many comments have been deleted. But I agree OP, it is ridiculous the stuff people come out with. I have kids but like someone said upthread, I also get ridiculous comments since the day I announced my pregnancy. I am judged for being a working mother, or stay at home mother, for being too strict or too lenient. No matter what approach I do someone will comment about it. And as they grow its not only comments about me that I'm sensitive about, it extends to my kids too. Everything they do and say is somehow a reflection of me and it leaves me feeling incredibly exposed. So while I agree with you about the childless comments, my point is that if you were to have kids you would have the same complaint or experience. Some people are just idiots

This. Exactly this.

When I see young people having children, as someone now in her early 30s, I can see how many of them are falling for the rose tinted glasses.

As you said, people were and still are, not honest about parenting. Every parent I know, has in someway expressed regret with their decision to have children.

We as a couple decided against kids. And I have to say, as I've gotten older, I thinks it's difficult to socialise with parents. I feel their desperate need to escape their what seem to be, incredibly demanding and thankless parenting lives, and I have no interest in having to pause an adult conversation because little max needs attention. I guess we all make our bed and lie in it. I just don't see parents entirely happy with the one they chose and that just makes me even more thankful with my decision, because aside of adulting problems, I pretty much have the freedom to do as I please. I have regularly felt the resentment from parents who gave up that freedom.

This type of thread appears every other day on MN and, having never ever known or witnessed anyone making such comments, I can only surmise that the people most ‘obsessed’ with the childfree’s life choices is the bloody childfree.

I didn’t become a mother until my mid-thirties and can honestly say nobody ever commented on it one way or the other.

I think it’s highly self-absorbed to think that anybody gives a shit about whether anyone else does or doesn’t procreate. There are much bigger and more interesting things going on in the world.

And, besides, us parents are much too busy…and tired…and full of love to even notice. Apparently.

You do you, Hun.

@Findmebythetulips If it helps, I find the “thiiiiis doesn’t haaaaaappen because it didn’t happen to me, a person who wasn’t childfree, when I was at an age when it was perfectly normal not to have kids yet” comments just as tedious as you find us to be.

This type of pointless shit exists between any opposing demographic.
Parents vs child free
motorists vs cyclists
children vs pets
vegan vs omnivore
You name it really, everything has its opposition.

The only real winners in the debates are the ones who can write it all off as schoolyard bollocks and continue with their lives without being phased.

That said, the Letby being a serial killer cos she didnt have kids was weapons grade wankery given that Rose West was a mother.

Hi. Do you have a fan page?

If you're childless, who is going to look after you when you're old?

Aren't you lonely?

Surely you secretly really want a child?

If you don't have kids you shouldn't buy a house with spare rooms or be too close to a school because it isn't fair on parents. You should also understand that parents just can't work weekends or holiday periods because they have children to look after. You need to support your colleagues who are parents!

You also should only book adult only things so you're not taking space away from families.

These are just some of the crazy things my childless sister has been told.

Well said.

There's an underlying mmisogynistic assumption that motherhood is primarily defined by and only properly experienced through super-human sacrifice and deprioritisation. Therefore it is perfectly acceptable, natural even, to come into a space built by and intended for mothers and demand to be accommodated. There are so many threads expecting the feelings and experiences of people without children be acknowledged and even centred here. The entitlement is wild. This is different from people without children on Mumsnet chatting about gardening or whatever. I'm talking about those who identify as 'childfree' and endlessly talk about it here, and pop up on parenting threads being nasty to and about mothers and children. No one I know without children in real life would behave like this but to be fair my friends seem happier and more well adjusted than a lot of the posters here.

@ChillysWaterBottle I've seen far, far more examples of mothers inserting themselves into threads specifically relating to being childfree, or coming to the childfree section to opine, than the reverse. You've just done it here.

Well said!

Also, with the comments around tiredness specifically - yes, maybe I would be even more tired if I have kids. But, who cares? I feel tired and shit with my life and responsibilities. You feel tired and shit with your life and responsibilities. Does it matter that by some arbitrary and unquantifiable measure, you are "more" tired due to having kids? We're both tired and feel shit and that's not good! Lets see if we can both find ways to be less tired and feel less shit! Why the need to gatekeep tiredness ffs?!

It's quite a leap to suggest that anyone has said she did it because of her strong biological urge though, isn't it.

She did it because she's evil/a psycho/mentally unwell.

That doesn't mean you don't consider the possible motive/trigger/self-justification. And ponder what that could be.

And it's not unreasonable to suggest what that might have been. It doesn't mean you're making judgements about everyone who happens to share a particular characteristic with her (that, in this case, being not having a child).

This is so true. We just cannot win, Mums of only children get similarly stupid comments. We let ourselves down as women by turning on each other.

Well said! So true

@ludocris it's a leap that was being made on the threads about LL. There were posters actually stating that they think her motive was because she was desperate to have children and was jealous of the mothers whose babies she murdered. That's exactly what this thread is responding to, if you read the OP

@JudgeAnderson you didn't understand my comment at all, didja